Am I Opening a Goodbye?

This is going to be a slightly somber day for me today. After I post this up I'm going to be logging on to WoW to do my set of dailies for the FL mount and it might be the last time I log on. See today is Christmas and I'm going to open SWTOR and I can't wait.

Over this past year WoW has grown very boring and, well, I don't know maybe I've moved past the game.

I don't have a ton of time to invest in a video game lately, so I won't have the time to jump on both and I know me, I'll be leveling as fast as possible.

Hopefully MoP will bring me back full time, unless the primary word on SWTOR is wrong by what most say.

I will let everyone know as soon as I have it figured out but I do know this if I start a tank on SW, I'll blog about it too. I really enjoy doing this.

Happy holidays to everyone out there. I hope this day finds you healthy and happy and be safe out there for the New Year.

Thoughts on LFR and a pug experience.

My gear!

Above is a shot of my Tier 6 retro gear!

Last post I mentioned I hadn't got into the LFR system yet. A few hours later I jumped on, que'd up and gave it a go. This was literally 8 days after the LFR system opened up. I came in mid fight as a DPS and was in tank gear so I took off RF and put up my 9k dps (hey I tried, bad gear and lil vengeance doesn't equal good DPS in prot spec and gear). Down went the boss and I was thinking, I heard it was easy but wow. That was the final boss for the 1st part.

I que'd back up. Now sadly I'm on a lap top and it doesn't handle the 25's well as I learned in my first LFR.. So I went as DPS. We smoked the first group of bosses. The ease is amazing. My thoughts are that 5 mans are harder.

On to the DS, which I figured would be harder. Nope, in fact we wiped on the back of Deathwing and 7 people left saying this was a fail group and they don't group with bads. How did we wipe, no one listened to the 9 stacks the NPC must get or the tentacles spawn.

Of the 9 bosses I did in LFR (one twice) we wiped twice. Once because it seemed all the healers lagged on Hagarar. Deathwing was total FACEROLL and I did win the sword Gurthalak from ole deathy himself. I know I'm a tank but I was DPSing and that is my other spec. Every class that can use that can spec prot so I took a shot and won it. yay for me.

Pugging HoF-

I was chatting with a friend on RealID. He told me to come over and we could que up for the new 5mans on a DPS toon. I was excited because I don't like to que on my DPS, takes too long and I never get a good group. I was pretty happy that he was going to run me thru.

I went on my hunter Zumhug, I neglect him big time and his gear suffers for it. I waltzed into the new 5 mans in my broken MM spec and started doing 9k DPS on trash. The tank who was on vent told me it was a tad low but wait til a boss. Some how, some way ZIXIO a frost DK who was pulling a whopping 16k told me how bad I was and my DPS was to low to be in "this stuff".

Now in my defense (and excuses) I was low; my gear was bad, I think it was ilvl 351 and I'm playing on a laptop where I don't have use of my key binds and my bar add-on which leaves me on stock UI which is a bit clunky.

Our 1st boss was Jania, I went all out and since I was in vent with the tank I head a heads up on when it was going to start. I put everything I had into it. I pop'd cooldowns and tryed not to let a global pass, to my dismay, I hit a horrid 12k. Oh my I didn't hear the end of it. Then they started on my gear. My poor hunter got a beaten. I do have the rogue/druid agi trinket (Unheeded Warning) which isn't bad, it has nice Agi on it and well, I'm not raiding with this toon.

Since Zixio was a frost DK he did a pretty decent amout of damage and the the Rogue just smashed the charts. I was feeling shame and I heard over and over how bad I was at this game, I was a kid and it was my kind of player who was ruining the game for good people like him.

My response was, you are a DK and you think your DPS is good. It takes skill to play a frost DK and do good damage, am I correct in that?

Anyway, the last boss in our 5 man dropped the Agi and the healer (shammy) rolled and won it. Before leaving he ad sure to tell me my 17k on that boss was pathetic and left.

I won a few peices, bougth a trinket and paid for the crafted xbow. I hate being bad. On my next go round in those 5 mans, I hit about 20k on bosses and felt better.

My lord are people in LFG nasty. What a community wrecker.

Thoughts on 4.3, Deathwing Incoming!

I want to take a second to say sorry for my lack of posting lately. I wanted to make more effort at posting. I've had to deal with two pretty sick kids and a full schedule of finals lately. So as the year winds down I'll make more of an effort and try if even to short the post to give at least my 2 cents.

With the arrival of 4.3 Blizz finds themselves smack dab in the middle of cheating drama, while players are supposed to know how to play by the rules, being that this is a video game it must allow the cheat to happen. There must be a mechanism for it to happen or it simply wont. Never the less we see another top of the line guild take advantage and get busted. More on the happening here.

New gearzzzz
In less than 5 days playing I'm hitting 373 ilvl, just a reminder I didn't have on VP and did see one FL boss during T12. I did the three new five mans which I have to say were beautiful and provided a lot to take in but there is really no skill involved. I pugged them and had a few wipes due to mechanic etc...but all in all it lacked a challenge.

LFR
I don't have anything to report here other than the rave reviews I've heard about this. Being so busy in RL I haven't raided at all. I intend to give that a go tomorrow and I can't wait to see this new tier of raiding.

Darkmoon
I'm not too sure I know all the quests there but the games are fun and they go quick. I still have a few more time to finish up the FL dailies so I'm doing those as well. Good news is I'm making gold.

Its the time of year to give thanks, I thank my wife and kids for putting up with me all the time. I'm also very thankful for the people who come here and read my babble.

The art of the pull!

Pulling a pack of mobs or a boss is the first step of any fight. The first time you put on the shield and 1h weapon and que to tank, making sure you handle your pulls runs thru your mind more than once. For some its second nature and for others they never quite get the handle on it.

Just a few ideas to make the pull easier and help those who are worried about that contact with the mobs you are going to say hello too. This simple act is and can be the biggest issue on how others perceive you as a tank. If you don't nail it PUGs will torment you. If you don't pick up your target fast enough it can lead to a wipe and if someone can prove (on any given fight) that they can do it, you might lose your spot as the tank.

This comes from a Paladin POV and the reason why is because its what I know best. I have dabbled in Warrior and DK pulls but I'm not nearly as good or as comfortable with either of these toons to want to raid or speed pull. I would rather take the 5 extra seconds in setting up the pull with my non main toons than wipe and cost us minutes to corpse walk, buff and bio after the wipe.

First allow me to give you a tad of background on how I learned to pull. The very 1st pally I played with was tirelessly slow and methodical. He could make a 1 hour H-Botanica run into 2 hours. Learning to play in TBC ---> A L.O.T. of your success was dependant on your pull. Ave Shield (AS) was a 1.5 second cast, didn't silence and in general Pally's were not pull friendly at a distance. Now...consecrate would gather EVERYTHING up then but if you had a caster...oh my how it sucked. Til this day I'm a tad uncomfortable running and pulling with my pally because of my early play time. When Wrath came out I thought I was good at the pull. Shortly after LFG came out, I que'd with my hunter and seen a world class player pull H-UP in 258 ilvl gear pull and finish it in 8 minutes. Now as ICC gear came out and 277 ilvl gear was all the rage, this was easy. As I watched this dude pull this place with precision and grace I knew I had alot to learn. I worked at it, it took some time but after a bit I got better. Here are some tips...

This will help with bosses or trash. It might even help you when a pat gets you are you have a tab targeter who like to help speed the run up.

Pre pull things:

• Is Rightous Fury on because you switched spec's?
• does the healer have full or near full mana?
• Know your enviroment, if this is your 1st time in this place DO NOT speed pull.
• Watch you pats (caster or melee) is it a watcher who will summon more?
• Pull the healer 1st, other casters 2nd and melee last. If you have a ranged (hunter) CC them.
• Will pulling this set pull the next set or special mob?
• Can LoS help you make this pull easier?
• What is the first thing this mob does? stun, cc healer etc. Pre-pop CD.
• Put second caster or secondary target as your focus, this makes switching fast and easy.

On pull:

• Mark a target, let the group know who needs the DPS 1st. Mark CC's and make sure who CC's who.
• NEVER PULL with HoR, if you do that ability is on CD, it does ZERO damage if someone pulls mob or boss off you, get top aggro until you can fix that. Its never good. just. don't. do. it.
• Exorcism or AS from range. On Boss or Melee, Exorcism is great and allows As and hammer to be used for more snap. On casters go with AS it silences them and brings them toward you for that extra bit of space in close quarters fighting.
• KNOW how your shield bounces, if there is more than one caster, did it them all? If not silence, CC or Rebuke on caster that is blowing you or your healer up.
• Plan what o do before the pull in case you miss with AS or you get a pat that is too close.

Directly after pull:

• Are all mobs on you? If not, you can HoR or RD them.
• How fast did your primary mob die? Do you need to get extra aggro on your secondary target?
• Do you need to lesson damage so your healer can keep you up?
• Can something bad happen now or in the next few seconds? Have CD ready.

As you see the last of the health leaving the last mobs bar, look to the next group, pat or room.

• Start this whole process again. Before the next set of pulls do  you need CD's to come up?
• Does the healer need mana? If not...go.
• If they do, wait a until what you need to come up.

I hope this helps those who need a bit of help on the pull, pull smoother. If you have any comments or questions. Let me know.

You too can be Better.

The party  you are with deserves it!

This is in response to a wonderful post to a brilliant blog. Vosskah over at Sword and Board is a brilliant blogger, well spoken guy and just by his hints, tips and ideas he must be a hell of a tank and WoW player. Please go check out his blog and I know you'll be back after reading once.
I'd like to in a way, mirror Vosskah's  post and make suggestions to fix someone you know that could do the job better. This probably isn't for a pro tank, raid tank or tanking officer but I guess it could be.

What can you do to help your tanking?

• Gem - Right now superior gems are a must! Mastery is KING! Put a gem in that empty SLOT!
• Enchant - if you don't have an enchant on it, go do it.
• Glyph - Why don't you have your glyph slots filled?
• Spec - Learn to spec. Bad placement = unspent points. As tanks we can now add to dps, TBC is in the past. DO IT! um, most specs are cookie cutter but once you your mitigation talents....add to the group dps.
• Gear - you have to know EVERY tank must have more than one set of gear. Switching trinkets and other types can go a long way to helping others in your group for a fight.

Those are the basics. As tanks we get an insta que, please go spend 10 minutes finding out the info on the above if you don't know it or send them to Righteous Defense, Sword and Board or Maintankadin.com, or have them email me. ----> there is a ton of great blogs to the right!

We all know every tank MUST generate threat. Even with the buff to tanking threat, you still have to work if you are outgeared by DPS. To me, if a DPS passes me I want to know why. You have to make sure your threat talents are in place. Make sure RF, Defensive Stance, Blood Presence or bear form are where they need to be. Next look to spec, (only pally) Rule of Law, Wrath of the Lightbringer and Crusade are almost a must. If you don't have them, GET THEM. If you are still getting passed in threat, you need more (as a pally, warrior or DK) Expertise, if you have to go this route, you might be playing with people that way outgear you or you need to be more aggressive.

You have to know how and WHEN to use Cool-downs. Here is a marvelous post from Mel on how and when to use cool-downs. As a pally, with trinkets and HS, we can almost have some cool down going all the time. NEWS FLASH WOG is no longer an acceptable talent cool-down at the 5 man heroic or regular raid instance. You don't need it, lose the talents and the glyph. If you need it your healers are not regular healers and don't know how to play the class. Just saying...

The one most important rule for any tank in a busy fight is preparation! (thanks Ciderhelm)
If you can answer these questions, you know you're in good shape:

• When is the bad thing going to happen?
• Who is the bad thing going to happen to?
• Where is the bad thing going to happen?

Know your weaknesses, fix them. Vosskah mentioned kiting, if you are a bad kiter, go find a mob that can harm you and kite it. Any good tank needs to move, if you have issues moving work on it. Here is a great video and post about kiting. I was once a clicker, I worked hard at keybinding and button pushing. That was my biggest weakness. If one of your weaknesses is not doing something someoone tells you because your way is "fine" thats lazy and unacceptable. If you are just coming back into game or not a regular raid tank, take the advice of someone else. Give it a shot, who knows those wasted talent points you put in a worthless talent might help your raid or even that brutal heroic you are in as a pug.

Work on your strengths and make it work. I hate to DIE, omg do I hate to die. I solo tanked Arthus from P2 to the end of the fight. I was determined to kill him. I will do anything I can not to die, including not mess up two times in a row (fixing a mess up). I'm also a great chaos tank, when things go to hell,  I'm at my best. I take pride in not dying, I take pride in trying to out DPS my DPS. Sorry this was all about me but I'm just trying to give examples.

If you are unsure of these, ask someone, get some feedback. As your raid leader, tanking officer or take the advice of a blogger you trust. I'm going to be they'd bet willing to have a long conversation about how to make your runs just a bit better.

The Guild Builder!

I'm out of the club, I lost my blogging card....cuz this blog isn't about 5.0, Panda's or anything that happened at Blizzcon. I figured you'd be inundated with all that. Right now the info is coming from Blizz in bunches so I'll break that up and talk a tiny bit about something I've decided to take on.

I'm done with raiding, I mean, I'm done raiding on a set schedule. Life is just to hectic to say I'm going to raid with someone and have something change where I have to leave. I'm frankly not into looking for someone fit what I'm looking for. I'm not the type to allow others to wait on me to show. That just wouldn't be fare.

My options are to look for a casual guild that is super big and made level or grab a guild that has a raid team and be the outsider who try's to even get heroic tanking jobs. So instead, I'm going to LEVEL a guild.Why? Not sure, but I wanna try it.

A few months back I got ahold of a guild with a terrible name and three bank tabs. So I've put all my toons in this terribly named guild and started doing some quests. After 3 weeks I am now half way thru LEVEL 1...omg. The XP it takes is overwhelmingly high. Blizz really set the bar high getting to level 2 with a guild. To give you an idea, after 3 weeks of questing in my epic tabard, I couldn't hit level 2 until next week. To top it off, no one, and I mean, no one wants to join a level 1 guild. There is no reason too.

So whats the plan, not sure. I've made a macro and I try every day to hit up all the unguilded people I run across for every 3 I get, 2 leave. I don't wanna be a trade spammer and frankly I'm embarrassed about my guilds name. Sooooo until I can change it, I won't be doing the trade route. Until I get to level 2, I won't have success recruiting the lower level toons.

Back to the that plan...Well, I'm a tank, a pretty good tank. At least good enough for the heroics pose now in difficulty. I offer an insta que to those who want to gear an unguilded non raiding toon. Once I get a few who wanna get those toons some gear, we can hit that magical level 2 and then I can get the lower alts to come and stick.

I guess I should wonder whats the point of this, but I'm bored with the game, not in a place I can raid and just want to do something I have done before. This is my next project....

Stay tuned!

Tanks Gone Bye...

I was once told that you should thank the people you need too thank before its too late.

Going thru some Blogs last night, I was listening to the Double O Podcast about tanking done a few weeks back. What a great episode and I learned some stuff but...I also started thinking about those I have tanked with, set up a relationship with and I think I need to take a minute to say thanks to them, tell them what they did to advance me and let you see the pixels that not only helped me become a better tank but allow you to stroll down this memory lane as well.

Below is the links to those who I've Co~Tanked with and a bit about how they moved me along:

Saharah - The person responsible for me being the player I am, in fact I rolled a tank so he could play his hunter that he really enjoyed playing. All in all, this is the person that taught me to tank and was an in game friend. Sah, ran the guild, was the RL in TBC and basically a father figure to us all. A bit of a misunderstanding in the guild and resulting drama drove the guild apart.

Solner - The coolest RP'r I've met in game. On top of that a hell of a tank with so much of a real life it held him back from being one of the best in the world, IMO. Solner, taught me pace, mob control and how to min/max. He also allowed me to make mistakes and guided me to be better. He was a no nonsense tank and I hope I take some of my style from him.

Kurok , Jexar and Janthar - My Co~Tanks, from a guild I was in called Natural Twenty. I was newer to hard core raiding when I joined them and we sat around top 1000 in the world during Ulduar. All of these guys were ahead of me in skill but always made me work to earn my spot. In fact Kurok, gave up his tanking spot to DPS so I could tank and Janthar played his Shammy. Natty 20 was the most talented guild I was ever in. One day I logged on to see the GMotD state "thanks for the memories, we will not be a guild as of next week. The members of Natural Twenty made me a capable raider.

Soten -Best tank I've played with while he was on and had incredible motivational influences on the raid and he was a natural leader. Amazingly he was only a teenager but I at time felt in awe while tanking with him. I learned so much from him. We were in a guild called Refuge, they were super casual, none the less great.

Shem -  He was such a great guy and a good tank. The guild always made him feel inferior due to how good Soten was. He was good, he never knew how good. During Wrath pally's were OP and that fueled Shem and Skreebo in the ongoing "Pally's are OP debate".

Skreebo/Raxial - What a goof! This guy was probably the closest friend I had in game. He knew so much about every class in game and helped me learn warrior and druid tanking. He had a job that didn't allow him to raid hardcore and he got tired of the game far too fast. He took about 3 extended breaks while we tanked together. Amazingly he had so much grace he made a troll look like a ballerina while pulling.

Vars - I learned something every time I logged on to raid with him. Much to my chagrin none of it was good. Vars was the GL and RL for the guild he was in and ruled it with a heavy hand. He was a loot hog and disingenuous. No wonder he had gone thru several tanks including me and the other pally he recruited at the same time as me. It was a great lesson thou and other than the comment about "our guild doesn't give new people gear because bring new raiders in is a big investment" there are no hard feelings. Hey Vars....the big investment is the $50 it cost me to learn how bad things really can get.

Elms - The best DK I've ever seen! He was RL, tanked and always wanted the kiting job or OT role. He never missed anything and made improvements on the fly. We were top 3000 in the world and I think most of that was because Elms was so good at his jobs. I really wish things would have been different and I could have stayed with that guild.

Lifedrynker - What do I say about Life? He was a tremendous player, an officer without the role and just let me do my thing...Tank. He had ZERO ego when it came to putting the best class in its proper role. He was a step ahead at all aspects of the game and I wish I had his awareness. Life just recently left the game due to burn out, too bad we didn't get to tank more together. I could have learned alot from him had we tanked more together, as it stands I'm a better player for working with him. Who knows maybe SWTOR will see me and life getting hit in the face again.

And I never tanked with any of them but a special big shout out to those who have helped me and did so much work with the pally community at Maintankadin.com.

Pink is the new Green.

Cancer is bad! It is such a  horrible disease that takes far to many lives in the world each day. So any cause that works to fix and treat cancer is a great thing. If you look here and other places on the net you will see there are so many places that want to help and ways to show that you helped put an end to this terrible disease.
The most recognizable and widely embraced is the Pink Ribbon used for breast cancer awareness. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and most major sports pay respects to this and allow the players to wear pink to honor the month. I think this is amazing and it's sad that this is only done during this special month but...it is what makes it an awareness month.

Something I've noticed so much lately is not only are more people wearing the pink to show that they care and want to help, it seems many retailers are cashing in on this as well. If you look at this from a business sense its a no brain money maker but the purpose of this is supposed to for increased donations and income for breast cancer research. Now, I'm not saying donations are not being made to the organizations that need the help but if you look at pricing at a retail stores the mark up is higher on anything pink during this time. This is not to bash anyone so I'm not going to link examples but a local NATIONAL chain sporting good store has a display as soon as you walk in showing the pink items they have. Very nice and respectfully done. If you head back to the specific isle to look at others they offer, the pink items cost about 25% more for the same type of item, the only difference, it's pink. This was across the board, something as simple as a branded T-shirt that was pink is now $3 to $5 more just for the color.

While wearing pink during this month is cool, remember that probably not all the extra profits go where they are needed and far to many people are cashing in on self profit for this to be only done for only good intentions. Here is an article I found that might give you some different thoughts as well.

Remember while wearing pink during this month does so many so much good, its also helping line pockets of others. If you really want to sure that your efforts are going to the correct place visit some of the following links:
http://www.nbcam.org/
http://www.breastcancerfund.org/
http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/
http://www.cancer.org/
Check them out, see if its somewhere you think you money might go to help those in need.

I understand this is in no way a WoW blog, but it was something I wanted to get out there and say and since pally's are pink....we kind of have a relation....right?

Also a really quick footnote, I am in no way related, nor do I endorse or am I affilated with any of the links in this post, it was something I thought would help get people moving in the right direction.

No More Accents and Other news.

Shame on you accents -

4.3 is up on the PTR and here is one thing that makes some scratch their head, kinda along the lines of removing portals, to put them back up later...

Not sure what to think about this, really. But Blizz in the patch notes stated the following below. I understand that people get frustrated about having to type or look how to make the special code for this, is that really that big a deal when the names that currently have them won't have to change?

North American realms (excluding Brazilian, Latin American, and Oceanic realms) no longer permit letters with accents in character or guild names. Existing character and guild names with special characters will be unaffected by this change. (source)

I xfered to a server where Chasey was taken by a level 11 toon that hadn't been on in months and wasn't on for all the time I was on the server. After multiple attempts to get a GM to open the name, finally I got one to do it for me. The reason: the character didn't meet the criteria to unlock the name. I asked why and it was because the toon was to high a level. All in all it worked out, I got the name. I did however have to pay for this service.

Here is where I have issues with this, if you have a toon and need to xfer, the name is your toons identity, at least it was for me. I understand rolling a new toon, find another name but really....Chasey was always Chasey even if she did have a å in her name.

There are two other issues that I'll hit on briefly and you can make your own mind on this issue but reading this on MMO-Champion, you'd think this was the BEST THING EVER.

• To many people sit on names, not logging in and Blizz wants us to roll alts, you hear lots of complaints that too many names are taken.
• Having one special accent in a name is no harm at all, yet this is a patch note, is this a game changer?

Maybe they plan on opening up surnames?

Bout me...
Not sure where I'm at in game. I'm done with raiding and my computer is still out. I still keep up with the news. I did some looking to see what I wanted my gear to look like when we can change it. BTW anyone else think that "transmogirification" is a weird name?

Here is one idea I came up with:
Found this while doing a search, it has spirit on it but really its just for looks. I have no idea what weapon to go with, but I will go with the Isle's shield. Always loved that thing.

My other options and I have it sitting in the bank is Tier 6. How can you beat Tier 6 as a paladin?

I'll throw a picture up later. Sadly this is the only thing I got to look forward to so far, I'm not a very vanity orientated player but making my toon look good is going to be pretty awesome.

Incoming Nerf and Fixes.

Below is today's big nerf to 4.2 and at the bottom is my response to my comments from my last quote. For some odd reason I can't comment on my own blog...LOL

From MMO-Champion
September 20Firelands

• Hell Hound Rend Flesh damage has been reduced by 25%.
• The damage multiplier granted by energy to Unstable Magma has been reduced by 50%.
• Alysrazor
  • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Alysrazor now drops 1 additional feather in 10-player mode and 2 additional feathers in 25-player mode in all cycles.
  • The Wings of Flame buff duration on Alysrazor is now uniformly 30 seconds.
  • Alysrazor’s Fiery Tornados now move slower.
• Baleroc
  • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Baleroc now swings 25% slower while Decimation Blade is active.
  • The duration of Tormented has been reduced on normal difficulty.
• Beth'tilac
  • Beth'tilac's health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
• Lord Rhyolith
  • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
• Majordomo Fandral Staghelm
  • Health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty. Health and damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Druid of the Flame have had their health reduced by 15%, and Sunfire damage reduced by 25% on both difficulties.
  • The health and melee damage of Spirit of the Flame have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty, and reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
• Ragnaros
  • Ragnaros' health and damage have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty.
  • Ragnaros' damage has been reduced by 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Magma Trap damage has been reduced on all difficulties.
  • The health and damage of additional enemies in this encounter have been reduced by 25% on normal difficulty and 15% on Heroic difficulty.
  • Wrath of Ragnaros now knocks targets up, but not back, on normal difficulty.
• Shannox
  • Health and damage have been reduced by 15% on both normal and Heroic difficulty.
  • Riplimb's health has been reduced by 15%.
  • Rageface's health has been reduced by 15%.
  • Magma Flare damage and Hurl Spear damage have been reduced by 15% on both difficulties.

So here it goes:
Nat and Caly thanks for reading. I agree with you both.
@LM I appreciate you responding and reading the blog, I don't think you read this post fully. If you did, maybe you missed some of my points.
When T12 (FL) hit, VP was not available from the T11 instances. They placed a hot fix later to receive VP. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2795074028?page=4#69
That wasn't really an opinion, it was fact that has been updated and exact quote was:

Removing VP from T11 raids when FL hit.

alluding to the fact that it is NOW there. Sorry if that was perceived wrong in my type.
The next issue you addressed is ilvl, I was NOT saying was the highest ilvl in game. I made a mistake, 378 is from normals and 391 is from heroics. I made a horrible mistake and I'm sorry. Point of that whole paragraph is the guilds that have killed Rags on normal is very low.

Lastly is the nerf to FL being in steps, at the time of the post all the info I had was it would be done:

"by around the same percentage we brought difficulty down for the original Cataclysm raids when Rage of the Firelands (patch 4.2) was released."

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3494581#blog

There was no announcement of steps. It said the coming weeks.

I can see where this would be a huge area of concern for people as I got info wrong, I will make adjustments and fix this in the future. In general I do check my facts even on Op-ed type posts.

I hope I made your day better and cleared up some confusion, cuz that is what I'm here for.

State of Warcraft

It has been a long time since I posted anything of substance. The last few days I've been laid up due to my bad knee being, well...bad again. I've been reading alot about the game, the feeling of the players and doing my blogging rounds.
Here is what I've seen and yes this is my opinion but it is based on what others, at least those who frequent the net have said.
-No one is happy - the game is losing players, guilds and some servers are even on the decline. Reused content and lack of things to do is hurting the game. On top of it releasing a major patch during the summer makes it hard for a lot of the non hard core gamer.
-Raid lockouts- going to a single lockout has hurt the player base far worse than anyone expected. This limits the time and activity of many of WOW's players. You can only raid on your toon one lockout per week. You can't even pug, you only have 1 lockout.
-Raiding is difficult - Blizz did what they set out to do by making the raid much harder than they were in Wrath. You hear the calls to bring back Wrath raiding again. Sadly I think Blizz missed the boat thou in how unforgiving they made T11 and T12 raids. Yes they were doable, but honestly, T11 was MUCH harder than T10 ICC. Its never a good thing to have the end of one Xpac be easier, almost too easy and then make the next tier of a new Xpac so challenging.
14,000 guilds have cleared FL's normal modes, this is equal to 1.4% of WOW's population. Way too low. Average Ilvl is 370, that's pretty high seeing as the item level is 371. This means that everyone who has beat Rags is wearing head to toe gear from FL to kill him.

I understand how the upcoming nerf to FL is upsetting all the hard work they have put in with raids and wipes. Taking 20% health and reducing damage as much is a hard pill to swallow. I don't think Blizz doing the 20% right away, doing it in steps would have made this to take.

Other mistakes Blizz has made with Cataclysm :
- Again reusing content, while for the first few weeks it was cool. It got old again fast.
- Making 5 mans soooo long as Cata was released.
- Tuning 10 mans in T11 so tightly. Yes this argument has been beat to death but 1 bad player and on death was almost a certain wipe.
- Taking the community out of the MMO. Just que up and do dailies.
- No central city. Throwing us into the home cities was just horrible.
- Removing VP from T11 raids when FL hit. Even a reduced rate would have been nice.
- 31 point talent tree - everyone is cookie cutter. You can't even be bad by picking the wrong talents, you don't have any to pick wrong.

With all this it seems to me, Blizz has thrown the panic switch and is now allowing us gear up prior to Deathwing hitting the net.

Farewll to a few

This is sort of an odd post but seeing as I don't play a whole lot at the moment and don't have in game news or insight to what is really going on. I wanted to take a minute to say good bye to a guild I don't really know but that has been a major source of entrainment and laughs in my playing of this game.

In fact, I was in a guild and had a pretty good in game friend that used one of Sebudai's quotes every raid. I no longer talk to that guy but any time I see the below picture or anything that resembles one of these quotes, he pops to mind. So I guess this post has a tad of duality to it. Goodbye to Juggernaut and Skreebo.

The reason I write about this is, Juggernaut of Mal' Ganis was a top 5 guild in the world at one point. The recently stopped raiding, recruiting and to the best of my knowledge lost most of their members. I've sent an in game mail to Sebudai to see what happened but I got no response. I know guilds come and go, but this leaves me wondering how many long time, vanilla guilds have split apart during Cataclysm and the lack of content?

I think my very favorite one is:

It's not rocket surgery

but I still giggle like a school girl every time I read:

As a guild we struggle with these mobility fights, I'm not sure why we do.If you need practice jumping then you can go find a cliff and jump off it or something. 

In other happenings:

4.2.2 seems to be flying upon us meaning 4.3 is close. It seems this Xpcac has gone by very fast.  I'm pretty interested in the extra bank storage but I don't like that you lose all the gems and enchants. And you can bet your bottom dollar I will be rocking the T6 look all the time! and my hunter will be in T4. I'm pretty excited for these changes.

Thank you to those who congratulated me for my one year as a blogger. For some reason I can not sign in to respond to posts. Odd!

I'd also like to say goodbye to the guy who invited me into the guild. He was my tanking partner and a very knowledgeable guy. I've tanked with some good tanks, knowledgeable people and people who care about the guild. But Life had the best grasp of three at the same time. He always did his home work, had his gear perfect and without being an officer he ran just about everything within the guild and didn't complain. He had to for personal reasons leave the game for an undetermined amount of time. I'm sad to seem him go, with him went his RL friends which wasn't a shock but it took a pretty geared healer and a fill in raider.

Life take care buddy.

To my readers, I will try and post up some more stuff soon. This summer has been SOOOO busy?

DK Solo's LK!!!

This is a solid video about a DK soloing a end tier boss. I'd say the pinnacle of Wrath raiding but Ulduar and Yogg would have something very loud to say about that.

Take a look and enjoy the video. The DK that did this is in 391 gear and is a master at soloing bosses.

Overall nice work and I'm truly envious...well done!



LK's main challenges are:

• 1) Practice of cooldown usage in p1. They're used *very* strictly and if you don't have that practice, you'll probably wipe in p1 endlessly (which is what I initially did)
• 2) surviving transition phases. This is insane and requires, again, extremely precise cooldown management and positioning.
• 3) Finally, the obvious DPS race. This fight lasted an exact 15 minutes, not a single second more or less - I spent the whole evening wiping between 11 and 12% and finally, finally did it, through more Vengeance stacking and better play on my part (oh .. and maybe a lil bit crit RNG I guess? :p).

FAQ:

• Necrotic Plague : cannot target the tank. You need it to clear the ghouls/vrykuls from phase 1, however. The trick is to put an engineer dummy to drop aggro for a split second, LK gives you the plague, outheal it, then proceed. Use either AMS/Chains of Ice or Potion of Purification to remove it/prevent it from affecting you again.
• Valks : Buggy as hell. Can't target the tank, they just mess around. They finally stop eating popcorn and grab me at some point... you'll have to watch to see when.
• Defile : I stand in some of these on purpose in order to increase Vengeance. It has to be done very carefully, since both p2 and p3 are very healing intensive phases (p2 because of Infest which means I can't dip too low on health, p3 because of vile spirit explosions)
• Frostmourne: Yet another mechanic that doesn't target the tank. Wouldn't be difficult to overcome in any way whatsoever, but would make beating the enrage impossible, so I guess that's a good thing it's not there.

Source and source

Nice work!

One YEAR!

Yesterday was the blogs 1st birthday. Its been a bumpy and eventful year. Life has been just tremendously hectic and I am sorry I haven't been updating or posting alot lately. Soon that will change.

This Blog has taken me to a different realm, watched me FINALLY kill the LK after 5 months of trying, watched at least 4 guilds fall apart, seen a computer go bye bye, countless people I was close with stop playing and a new xpac come out. All it all in game life has been almost as eventful for my toons as for me in real life.

I'd like to take a minute to thank:

My guild - a good group of people, I ejoy playing with these guys it makes raiding fun.

Bloggers: Goodbye to some of the greats we have seen go. Wrathy, Honor, tanking tips and Tegen, you guys kicked off my need to write about something I am at times very passionate about.
The new blogs who continue to explode on the scene with great ideas and a wealth of info.
And lets not forget the writers who still inspire me daily - Rhidach, Argus, the Bossy Pally and Manalious. Oh and then there is the trio at sacred duty who fill all of us with the knowledge to be better, make us strive to be great and make sure our shit is gemmed, spec'd and enchanted the right way. If there was anyone I missed or forgot...I'm sorry. The blogging community as a whole is almost as amazing as my great guild.

And...to my family for allowing me this hobby and giving me the time to play a game.
Thanks to all that have read my blog. I really like to write, I'm not great at it but this gives me a chance to allow my voice to matter a bit more. I'll be back posting info and babble soon.

Here's to another year....hopefully a great year!

Fireland Raid guide and videos

I got most of my info from here along with the boss guides they have a great trash guide too.

Thrash info:
http://www.icy-veins.com/firelands-trash-guide it breaks it down pack by pack per boss.


Map of the instance:





Boss videos: All of a Tank POV. I hope you enjoy! Thanks again to Icy Veins !

Shannox written guide and video -



Lord Rhyolith written guide-


Beth'tilac written guide -


Baleroc written guide -


Alysrazor written guide -


Majordomo Staghelm written guide -


Ragnaros written guide -

Bout time!

Allow me to show praise and get the word out that its about time Blizz recognized this person. He is a good guy, does tons for the community and lets face it, some of us tanks would be lost without his "thing" he does.

The only thing missing is a cool lil tag at the bottom stating his moniker he has been given on Maintankadin which he is "bringer of pounding headaches" but luckily he is brilliant enough to put a TL; DR in each section to allow the "rest of us" to understand all that crazy math. Thank you Theck, for always giving us your best, the Paladin community would be far behind without you and you have always taken time to answer my questions with class! People like you make this game better.
[Theck's Emberseal]

My Absence -

While all the blogs are talking about the new HS mechanic and the changes in the spec, I'm sidelined with an ailing computer and a bruised ego, only slightly thou. My guild is raiding without me and while the get their feet wet I'm stuck listening on vent on my laptop. I'd love to be there dying with them, killing trash and planning strats. I'm a few weeks from being back operational so not only will I be behind in gear but I'll be the new tank again. I'm grateful that I'm in a causal guild at times like these. While I haven't been on alot with my computer being down, I'm not in raider status right now so I have the cold shoulder turned to me, ever so slightly. Time will tell.

The Contract

Are you really wearing that?
Now, we have all run across these people, we seen them in PUGs or the LFD system. The clueless, the misinformed, the lazy. Some of us take pride in our toons, as much pride as we would in ourselves, I mean why wouldn't you? We spend hours playing the toon, putting our personality on a pixel. Don't we? Every time we step into a 5 man LFD or PUG raid, people look at our gear, choices and spec to make judgements about us. Rightfully so, this toon we play tells alot about us and its all our mates playing with us know.

The inspection -
When we enter LFD people are inspecting you. Looking to see if you are a good player. Who are they to judge on how we play by the loot we have, gems we use of enchant we put on? In essence there is an accepted way to play this game. If you gear isn't right, the reforging is bad or you say wear spirit on a DK, this is the only know way we have to tell if they can find their as with both their hands. This would be no different than going to a job interview in coveralls or try to put out a house fire with polyester pants on. Neither one is going to make you very successful.

D-Bags and gear snobs aside, when we enter the LFD or a PUG we in a way enter into a social contract that states we know how to play, and we won't be an anchor to the system. Far to often people who que don't hold up to their end of the contract. The ill's of the LFD aren't part of this post, I don't think I have enough room or time to get into that.

The Clueless -
Probably the easiest to help of the offenders. A simple tell stating where to look for help or a nudge that mastery might be better than crit and they are on their way to being a better player. Often times these are people that are newer to the game or have a very controlling class lead in the guild. There is a fine line between the clueless and the misinformed.

The Misinformed -
This is the player that will snap at you if you try to help or ask "why did you chose X over Y"? This is the person who "knows it all" yet still does it wrong. For the most part in my book these are the worst players. They do it wrong. They do it bad and won't take advice. Its clear where ever they get their info it holds them back. I'm not condoning have an EPEEN discussion in a pug but if they are doing it wrong and you think you can help, give it a shot. This is in general the play that will disrupt the group and let everyone know just how much they know, even thou they do just about everything wrong.

The Lazy -
This is the one that drives everyone nuts. They don't even care to gem, let alone bother getting hit capped. This is usually an alt, farmer or part time player. These are the people who will wear the PVP trinket and brag about the ilvl they have. This is an unsat toon. Its far worse than the clueless, they don't know any better, the lazy just won't do it. They feel they can get carried and of the above two mentioned this is the biggest reason groups argue or are dysfunctional. They don't pull their weight and don't care.

Every time we enter the LFD or pug we will not be at our best. Not everyone who plays this game is PRO or 'leet. But I think you at least need to have an idea of how to play your class and gear/gem/enchant them. You have 4 other people who are with you counting on you to do your job. This is that social contract you sign up for by que'n. No one is asking for all epics or BiS to do your daily but at least don't step into something you cheated the system on by buying PVP gear off the AH or throwing you healy spec'd trinket in to DPS a pug.

TL; DR
We owe it to try hard and gear correctly. There is no excuse for doing a run with others and expecting that they carry you or cover for your ineptness in spec/gear choices. As in society we owe it to uphold the contract of the norm while playing with others. Expect a vote kick or heckling if you are Lazy, Misinformed or Clueless.

Top 100!

Kind of a BIG deal!

The duality of this post is crazy! This my friends, this is my 100th post and I also wanted to brag a tad about something I set out to do.

Goals are different for everyone in this game. This was the kind of goal that you can work at and not hope for, like say...a piece of loot dropping from a boss. I'm not sure why I wanted to try and get ranked, maybe boredom, but I wanted to try this.

I did some looking and seen what kind of DPS I needed to pull and I was very...very close already. I put in a hit trinket, switched a glyph and added some expertise. There is no secret on what we need to do for damage output. At one point I was at 14.8K DPS but things got a tad hectic at the end and I needed to pop CD's.

A few things I noticed while doing this fight in a pure pure selfish way, when it comes to ONLY worrying about numbers.things seemed off and  I didn't like tanking this way, hell I didn't even like the feeling after the kill was complete. I won't lie, I'm slightly happy I accomplished my goal but I felt selfish. Here is what I noticed; My health meter was low ALOT! I became much more tunnel visioned, I only knew what I was doing and didn't have a firm grasp of the raids position. I never worried about WoG on anyone and my CD usage was delayed to say the least, it wasn't proactive. Would I do this again? Probably not, it wasn't fulfilling, that's just my opinion. (Source)

Personal -

Life has been crazy and hectic and I don't want it any other way. I'm helping coach my kids softball team and my son is playing T-ball for the first time. The sun is out and I think....SUMMER is finally here. These days and times make me me happy I'm in a casual yet competent guild.
If posting is erratic and a tad small on the content side, hang in there with me. The rest of my world is getting my attention.

Playing your best!

I've heard that water seeks its own level.

Oh, philosophical me! What I mean by this is that all water finds the place where it belongs. When it comes to this game I believe you play where you best fit due to the human aspect of the game. Yes, a few people go hunting for the very best guilds, some will play with friends IRL that don't have a clue how to raid in a progressed nature but that is still finding your level. In the game of World of Warcraft that is seeking your own level. How does this relate to "Playing Your Best"!

What steps can you take to play your best at this game even if you don't have the so called "hard core" amount of time to do that?

Experience-

• Hardly anyone is natural to video games, you have to do it to learn it. So, go do it. The more you do the fight/instance/raid the better you will get at it.
• Challenge yourself - You need to know your toon, your cooldowns and limitations. Take yourself out of you comfort zone. PVP, duel, solo an elite. Do something you would normally ask to get help with.
• Pug - Yes I said that! If you are 100% comfortable, pugging can get you into situations that you have to go above and beyond. A bit of patience and understanding go a long way. This doesn't mean play with rude or dumb people but sometimes mistakes happen. Deal with them and you will learn from it.

Prepare -

• Know the fight before you do it! There is a wealth of info out there for you to have an understanding. I'm not talking about watching Tankspots video and now you are a pro, but read the abilities, watch some videos from the POV of your job.
• Steps to learn the encounter (source ~ thanks Tank Repo)
• Gather facts - ie...read Wowhead or Wowiki
• Watch videos - your POV, Tank spot, google search
• Compare facts with videos
• Look at logs, recount
• Is this a lot to prep? Not nearly as much as a night of wiping would be if you go into a fight without knowing. Knowing what you need to do during a phase transition that you have seen on 5 videos is much easier to understand than having a raid leader say it once at the start of a fight.

Min/Max -
Gasp!!!----I used that 'leet verbiage, didn't I? This doesn't mean drop your profession and power level another for a certain fight or race change your toon to get more HP's to tank. No no no...this isn't what I mean at all.

• Get your professions to max or at the very least to the spot where they benefit you. JC's are allowed to use 3 JC only gem's...put them in there. BS get 2 extra gem slots...etc
• Get the rep you need for the helm/shoulder enchant or that 359 epic that will work for you.
• Spend the gold on the proper glyphs, enchants and gems. Gold is easy to come by in Cata.

Getting to know your toon and rotation take extra work. We have training dummy's all over the place now. Running a few minute rotation, including interrupts and CD usage will go a long way. During a time of high stress we go back to the very basics, the basic you are most comfortable with. If you can do your rotation without looking that makes you comfortable with it.

Does all this sound like a lot of work? It shouldn't. Once you get the toon set up you can knock this out in about 20 minutes every couple days. Less than a full heroic.

Now the water finding its level, after you put your time and work into making your toon better and "practicing" your game, you will make the whole group better because you are doing your job to the BEST YOU CAN.  This will allow the DPS to go harder faster, healers to use less mana and bosses to die.

You will soon find out that you level has raised and you need to move on or you like where you are and others play better due to the work you have done.

Making Progress!

The decision -

The edict was laid down last week, there would be no excuses, for the raiders sake we needed to step it up and move forward. If this didn't happen you could sense that there might be a fall out in the guild, the old way wasn't working.

We logged on last week and did some good progression, sadly all farm stuff and then Zerd (RL) stated that lockouts would be held over while we knock on Cho'galls' door. He then firmly told the raid...you better know the fight. Oh and study Throne of Four Winds as well.

Progression? -

We finished last week downing Atremedes and the Monstrosity. It was our 1st Atremedes kill, its not a hard fight, we had about six attempts at it and got it down pat. We then headed to our 1st end of dungeon boss. We had a quick explanation and the word was given to "see the fight" we had about four pulls and got him to phase 2 once. The next night we added a few wrinkles to the Cho fight and spent the whole night wiping but got him to phase 2 five times or so. It was frustrating but progress was being made. The night ended with the knowledge we needed to learn more.

This week we logged on fresh, ready to go and had about a 15 post thread on how we were going to do this guy. I was excited, we were all chatty on vent and you could tell there was a great deal of confidence. Tuesday was going to be the day...

Again, we got him to phase 2 over and over! 2% 5% etc...we were so close but for some reason we couldn't pull the DPS off to push thru the adds and put damage on the boss. We weren't hitting the enrage timer just dying to high corruption and not kill the adds fast enough. Then came the ATTEMPT from hell. I will never forget this fight, ever!

We did our normal routine, the fight went smooth, not flawless thou. We got to P2 got the adds down FAST, could this be the kill? We hit bloodlust, put damage on the boss and were getting close, 6% I died and a DPS went down. "REZ CHASEY" went the call, I accepted and taunted as fury just hit 4% only 2 dead and adds popped up. "GET THE ADDS" 2% I LoH to our shadow priest and we hit 1%, we were losing people...omg so close....we can do it. We have our DK tank, me our SP and healer alive. The SP drops, I spam my 'lock cookie....it didn't work....dammit. 100k, dots are ticking, 75k the damn healer dies, he is in angle form. Only our tank is up 50k...omg we got this....25k his icon is red but we can do it. What do you call 22,462 Hp's on a boss? A WIPE! We wiped with twenty two thousand hit points, roughly what I had buffed toward the end of TBC.

We had a few more solid shots but this one broke us or at least told us that even a 5 minute breaks is not going to shake off the sick you feel from dying to a boss most DPS hell, even tanking classes can do in one global. It was going worse, mistakes were being made. In my mind thou we were learning, I know I did. Life, my tank partner died due to his healer getting MC'd and taking to much damage. I picked up Cho and he was rez'd. I had 2 stacks of fury on me so he kited the adds and ooops his healer and my healer didn't realize it. Yes, we wiped due to raaaaannnnnnggggggggeeeee, oh fuck! We called it soon after, kinda shaken and hit BH before the night ended. We beat him like a rented boss, we took out frustration him, beating our or at least my record by 40 seconds.

Wednesday I logged on at almost raid time. I was getting grief for this, but people were laughing and having a good time on vent. The mood was light. Zerd (RL) was tipsy and telling jokes. We needed attention, we needed focus. Someone flipped the switch when we killed the adds. See Zerd plays a hunter and well, he is a huntard. He was putting the wrong traps and auto shotting ice blocks last night in "tard style. It was funny and he took the ribbing well.

We pull, DPS is rocking the  adds. This one seems pretty solid for the first fight. No deaths and adds are dying fast. Oh fuck, yells Zerd....the que the pull is going bad, or at least not good. We push to phase 2 and as we kite to the thrown, we have fire everywhere. I died and so was the dps. We kept on and got him to 5%. Not bad for the first attempt.

We rez, buff and sat silent. I was hoping that we weren't getting defeated, I was hoping this wasn't our 22k mood haunting us. I pull, position and bang away at him. He is dying fast. The adds too. The 2nd add pops and dies so fast my internal clock is off, I run to where Cho is being tanked and taunt....of fuck....he casts fury and I now have 2 stack of it on me. It hadn't fallen off....*SIGH* Life says I have adds as 3rd pops, he is kiting...it dawns on me, I say in vent for my healer to stay with me and for Dread to head with Life. It works. I chain my CD's so fury doesn't eat my healers mana. 4th add pops and dies, we have to hault DPS on Cho so we don't get the ooze and push to phase 2. Corruption is low, placement is good and he doesn't screw us with fire. I look at the second stalks spawn and they are all on me. OH WHAT? I say this in vent and these die fast. OMG we have a chance, no one dies. I look at his healt, cuz at this point Fury on the tank is almost automatic taunt. You just know you have to do it, you don't know why thou. 1% pops up and down he goes....

Yes folks, we 2 shot him after a make or break night, we did it. Everyone executed amazingly, and Zerd didn't yell OH FUCK! The feeling was great, we did it. For me, this has been a long and odd journey, I had my first halfus kill in December and slowly I plugged away to get a complete instance out of the way.

Our shadow priest, who raids on another server is 6/12HM 25 man says (and he very rarely speaks of that)  in vent, "that was pretty great guys, after doing it on 10 man, 25 man is easy mode, nice job". He doesn't say alot in vent, usually just tells people to stop screwing up.

The Throne -

We head over to this gawd awful place and get the low down on how we are going to do Conclave. We pull and our druid DC's, Zerd says, don't wipe see how far we can. We did pretty well on the first pull and downed them on the second pull.

We then went to Al'Akir...omg this fight sucks. I mean could there really be a more RNG based fight ever? It got so bad on our 7 plus wipes we were seeing how fast we could wipe. As the tank,  I have work to do to figure out how not to get blown off the platform, avoiding the ice he put around me and then getting knocked back. Honestly I HATE THIS FIGHT. Maybe after downing him a time or two, I'll change my mind but really after killing Cho, this was a bad way to end the night. This one seems like more luck than skill is needed. Time will tell.

Thanks for reading me brag about progression that is a few months behind but none-the-less its progression. I'm glad for a few things, I'm in a guild that I enjoy being around and they seem to enjoy having me there and one that even if its later than normal, they still want to progress. Oh, and I can still tank pretty well...

Eye for an Eye!

Talent builds-

If you look at Wowpopular and other data mining sites around you see that most Prot Paladins use a variation of the 0/31/10 build. We have a tremendous threat talent in that build, making it worth it for us to spec that way. There is are a few other builds (threat heavy) and the (WOG raid build). If you have no idea how to spec please see Thecks thread at maintankadin.com. My purpose of this blog post isn't about what to do, this is food for thought on a different talent. Allow me to introduce you to [Eye for an Eye].

No one questions the utility of the extra range on judgements but the problem lies if you are not kiting or working on trash this does no extra damage for you. Standing at the bosses toes getting beat on is where Eye for and Eye shines. I did some digging in the last few weeks of logs, on average I get an extra 2% damage per night by only using only 1 point in this talent.

The above picture one night of raiding, this shows 45 procs hitting for 9k and almost 18k on a crit. Just doing my job getting damaged. Here is my spec for that fights above. Below on a night with Cimaeron as the main focus (really a bad night) I did 4% of my damage via Eye for an Eye. (source)

The extra range that costs a talent point maybe nice, but it doesn't add up to the extra damage 1 point talent does. I don't kite enough for there is not enough trash for me to wan the extra 10 yards. That adds up to zero extra damage only increased range. [Eye for an Eye] put out more than enough for it to be worth it. Over the course of the fight, you don't see a ton of procs but that is a lot of extra damage for just being a tank. What would you do to get an extra 2% damage over the course of a night?
How it works-

Note: Eye for an Eye has been proven to proc from direct magic damage and some untargeted spells. Examples are Shadow Nova from Halfus Wyrmbreaker and Scorching Breath from his Proto-Behemoth, Twilight Blast from the Double Dragons, Magma Spit from Magmaw, Arcane Storm from Maloriak, and so on. Passive auras, such as Blood Queen Lana'thel's from Icecrown Citadel, are not eligible for reflection.(source)

In other words any coded magical spell that a boss can cast can proc this. A thread I read stated that even physical attacks that are coded magic can make this proc. It is also based off hit, I missed roughly 5% of the time every night. I do not know if Avenging Wrath or Inquisition increases the damage, I'm sorry I looked and could not find any conclusive evidence on this. I will continue to look and if I find anything I will edit and repost.


What others are saying -

Info is a bit on the scarce side for this talent, as far as prot is concerned anyway. There is a thread or two out there but here are a few quotes that I could dig up. I've even been called a "baddie" for putting a point here, to be honest, I'll be bad if I keep seeing these results and as long as I am not required to kite more.

Eye for an Eye actually has the potential to give you some additional "free" DPS. If you take magic damage, it can possibly pump a portion of it back at its source. This could lead to some free damage with your name on it in the meters. (Source)

Eye for an Eye deserves a special mention here. It seems to proc off of most spell-like attacks, regardless of damage type (even physical). Thus, depending on the boss, it can contribute anywhere from 1%-3% of your DPS completely passively. I personally value the utility of Improved Judgement too much to make that trade, but for those that don't E4E is a perfectly valid way to progress to tier 2 of Ret. (Source)

Conclusion-

I don't think you need to be blown away for a passive talent such as this to do what it is doing. You are only skipping a 10 yard extension to a talent you already have to increase damage by 2% for just standing there I think its a no brainer. Give this talent a shot, no boss does just physical damage all the time, this is cheap dps even...if you are the OT on a fight.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this talent and if you have an experience on it.

Fixing the soft spots!

How do you really improve as a tank, a raider and a player? I think you need to discover your weaknesses as a player and a person. Now, I know that sounds pretty deep when we talk about a game. Until you realize your weakness you won't know what you needs to be fixed.

I think I'm a good tank-
Lets look at what a good tank is for a second. We can loosely say this is subjective but the very basics of a good tank is:

♦Knowing your class (cooldowns, taunts, high threat).
♦Knowing the fights (boss ability, enrage, adds).
♦Knowing the pull (who gets CC'd, who dies 1st).
♦Keeping a decent pace but not out pulling your healers mana.
♦Knowing the limitations of your group/guild. (is threat gear ok vs. pure surv. gear)

As you can see all of these are in one way or another associated with knowledge. That in essence means, you need to tank; to get better, to keep your reaction up, to understand your class and others around you, and to hold threat.

So I just told you want it takes to be at least a competent tank. How do you get better? You have to figure out what you are doing wrong, or at least what you could do better. How? How do we go about that? Listen!

Yes, folks, talk to your tanking partner, healers, DPS...get a feel for what is going on with your pulls, your survivability and your reaction time.

After that is figured out, its time to hit the books or, um, the web. The game of Warcraft changes so fast, you have to get on the web and google it.

Brush up on the basics-

A classic video from Ciderhelm, a good watch and very informative.

The most important rule for any tank in a busy fight is preparation.
If you can answer these questions, you know you are in good shape:
1.) When is the bad thing going to happen?
2.) Who is the bad thing going to happen to?
3.) Where is the bad thing going to happen?

Find what works and make it better-

I don't know where your weakness lies but here is what I have done recently to fix my flaw...

By nature I'm an instinctual guy, I play by feel more than a robotic rhythm in nature. Once I learn a fight or that little light bulb clicks I have it down and rarely do I ever make the same mistake again. I'm not perfect but once I know it, I do it.If I do make a blunder...LOL it is usually EPIC and giggle worthy.

My progression as a tank has gone from keyboard turner (arrow keys) to ASDW key and clicking to all key bound etc...

I've worked on fixing my weaknesses-
♦ Forced myself away from the arrows, to a more comfortable area of the keyboard.
♦ Found a keybind blog and read it, I put my keys like that and talked to my guildies about how they do it. Then I went and praticed doing that forever.
♦ I'm now to the point where I don't keyboard turn in a fight at all, I drive my toon with my mouse and basically type all my spells. Well, wait, I'm a paladin, I don't think there is enough keys on the board to do that so I still click a few things.

Moving it along-

My next biggest area of concern is fight knowledge, sadly it is. If you don't have to raid lead you get complacent and allow the raid leader to do the work for you but...you are the tank, our work is different.

I'll admit, tank spot has a place in my heart and seeing Aliena every now and again isn't the worst thing. That givea you a basic overall just of the fight but it isn't the be all end all of fight knowledge.

So what have I done? I went back to when I had to raid lead our Algalon kill.I spent a lot of time figuring that fight out. Not only did I know his abilities I took into account the limitations of our group going in. Here is an excellent post on what it takes to figure out a fight.

At the minimum you should be-

♦ Watching the fight POV from your class or role in that fight.
♦ Reading Wowwiki or Wowhead and what will happen when the boss casts it.
♦ Watching a video with instruction (Yogscast, Tankspot or Cynicalbrit).

We wear plate-

Thicker skin is the theme here. As a tank, we are the front line of getting our heads kicked in. We need to stop incoming damage and there are other things that get put on us. We are offically the unoffical pace car and scap goat in most situations. Look, I'm not here to talk about pugs, and all that nonsense about who's in charge or whatever. At heart most of us like this responsibility and take some damage at home, behind the key board as well as in a raid/group setting. Its something that just happens.

Not everyone is going to like your tanking, your style or how you pull. There are people that are going to look to call you out as a tank, for various reasons it happens. It could be because they want to tank, want to make you look bad or just don't have a real understanding of the game. You have to move past this and understand, do your job and it will work itself out. Understand you are the pivot person of a raid, with that good or bad you will get attention, wanted or unwanted.

How to counter this-
♦ Understand where its coming from and counter it, is it a warrior or kat that wants to blow all its DPS cool downs on the pull. You could pop a salv. on that player before the pull or if it becomes really overboard, BOP them.
♦ Work on one of the above mentioned areas of concern. Faster movement, fight knowledge...etc.
♦ Communicate with the problem person or people.
♦ Keep doing things the right way and looking to improve, the problem doesn't lie with you.
♦ If you have done all of the above and the problem isn't fixed, Move on....

Introduction of blogs...

I want to take a minute for an introduction of two really great blogs I've recently run across. The people that write these blogs have an depth and understanding of the game most just don't get. They are the reason I don't get on here and ramble about numbers and theroycrafting....for one thing, they have already done it and they do it the correct way. Maybe I should get more into why I do what I do but a solid understanding for why is where these new blogs kick in.

Please take a minuted and enjoy these wonderful tanking blogs from long time members of the maintankadin community.

The Tank Repo(sitory) -  A tremendous look at not only all things tanking but of awareness and raiding as well. Welcome the well versed Paperplate.

Sacred duty - Three of my favorite posters I've ever read.

• Theck the KING of all things numbers and moments where you wonder if, is this really a game....lol
• Meloree - GM of a top 200 guild and self proclaimed brasher of those who are wrong on the Internet.
• Anafielle - an amazing writer full of witty and informative responses and probably nailed the best quotes I've seen about pallys ever:

"After all, paladins have had Voluminous And Unnecessary QQ as a baseline talent ever since Burning Crusade."

Welcome to the blogging community, you are putting your touch on a spot in the blogging world that needs help.

Thanks

Decisions!

This Blog will be a bit personal in nature, but in game stuff. I do want to apologize for not fixing some of the posts I had previous, I was cleaning up some tags and deleted a few very popular posts.


Before I begin, I really have to say how fun ZA is to do again. I really missed and it. I found ZG pretty rough. The poison boss is SO unforgiving. I read a few posts HATING it and others loving that they spent hours in a 5 man....thanking blizz for rough content...WOW!

Progression vs comfort-

Summer is coming, 4.1 is upon us and 4.2 is right around the corner. I'm sitting at 7/12 and have been for about a month. Why? We haven't raided! Sure we have had some half ass attempts, some fill in guildies for those who missed.

Some of the highlights; our top DPS got hurt and isn't playing, our newly promoted Holy Pally took a break; the raid leader has some seriously bad RL issues getting in the way of his attendance, and it seems the rest of the raiders are content with where we are. We seem to struggle on farm fights more and more and it is causing some to get short and snappy.

I am almost exalted, I'm very fond of the guild, I feel at home. I, feel, comfortable.

This silly, time consuming game and its effects on me. I'm very competitive by nature. I feel like I'm missing out, but leaving would be letting people down. Wouldn't it? or are they letting me down by not playing to their potential? By not showing up?
These guys count on me, they have helped gear me but we do barley better than some pugs. Not saying they are at the skill level of pugs but the ambition the, the drive and the attendance is something pugs can accomplish or the most casual guilds who just "wanna have fun raiding together". My original guild that I raided with split apart, 5 friends went to another guild. They are the most casual, savagely unaware players I've played with are further ahead than I am in progression. This hurts my pride bone a tad!

I fear if I stay put, I'll never see the content I want, in fact I know I won't. I will not buy my way to a title or achievement when it comes to raiding. I can do it on my own, or I think I can. The problem is, no one needs tanks. I feel I've pinned myself in a bad spot.

I got a tell yesterday from a lvl 75 toon. He was from the #3 guild on server, a top 1500 guild worldwide. They need a tank, problem is they are 7/12....Heroic! Doh! I would be skipping 12 whole bosses and working on new fights at the heroic level. Could I do it, sure...I think. I'd make mistakes, but is that what this guild is looking for? They told me, they are looking for someone situational aware, someone knows their class and reliable. I can do all that...

I hate change, I hate making mistakes, I love to raid, I want to progress....I don't know...

DK solo's Yogg-Saron

I seen this and couldn't believe it. Just 3 short tiers (2 1/2 really, was ToC even a tier? :P ) a Blood Spec'd DK goes into Ulduar and solo's the final boss. He burnt down the brain phase amazingly in one phase. That means he did more DPS than guilds of that tier did in three phases. (source)


Below is the video, simply AMAZING! Gratz sir, on such a great accomplishment.


(Cached version)

Zul'Aman and Zul'Grub Video guide

4.1 hits you monitor today and here is some strat vids that will help you familiarize yourself with the revamped for 5 man raid instances. After I get my feet wet, I'll throw up a strat guide for these 2 places because as this goes live it's sure to be different.

I am happy, excite and eagerly waiting to log on today, thank you to Yogscast for doing such a wonderful job as always (source)Love the lady gaga reference at 7:08
Zal'Aman
http://www.icy-veins.com/zul-aman-heroic-dungeon Thanks Icy Veins


Zul' Grub (source)
http://www.icy-veins.com/zul-gurub-heroic-dungeon Thanks Icy Viends